YouTube Gives No Reason for Pulling Prolife Group's Video

Footage Exposed Producers of “The Decency Gap”

July 02, 2008
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By Karna Swanson

DENVER, Colorado, JULY 2, 2008 (Zenit.org).- YouTube has pulled a video from their site that unmasks a supposedly unbiased film project as a pro-abortion initiative, and has yet to give any reason as to why it was removed.

The video-sharing site pulled “The Decency Gap/Eve Reinhardt,” which shows a meeting that took place in Lima several weeks ago between Carlos Polo, director for Latin America of the pro-life Population Research Institute, and independent filmmaker Eve Reinhardt, the Catholic News Agency reported today.

Polo reported that Reinhardt sent him several e-mails requesting an interview for an unbiased documentary on abortion, while hiding the true nature of her project. In the video, Polo confronts Reinhardt with information that ties her to a multimedia theater project titled "The Decency Gap."

The term "decency gap" is used among abortion supporters to refer to the gap of funding left open after President George Bush reinstated in 2001 the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits U.S. funding for international organizations that perform or provide information about abortion.

The video also includes pictures of the official Web site of “The Decency Gap,” which confirm it is being financed by the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Marie Stopes International, and the Center for Reproductive Rights, as well as the Peruvian pro-abortion association PROMSEX.

Since the posting of the video, the home page of "The Decency Gap" Web site has been pulled.

Polo had told the Catholic News Agency in June that those behind the multimedia project are trying to portray themselves as neutral in order to “continue ahead with the intention of misinforming people about the reality of abortion.”

No answer

David Uebbing, editor of Catholic News Agency, told ZENIT that YouTube refused to give comment via phone, and two e-mails sent Tuesday have not been answered. "All of our efforts to determine why the video was pulled have met dead ends."

When attempting to view the Population Research Institute video on YouTube, it states, "This video has been removed due to terms of use violation."

"We are [...] very confused as to why YouTube pulled our video," said Uebbing. "We did not see that our video in any way violated YouTube's terms of posting. YouTube's policy guidelines forbid posting videos that are violent, pornographic or violate copyright or privacy laws. However, none of these rules were violated by our video."

Uebbing added that the American Life League also had one of their videos pulled, "due to the complaints of Planned Parenthood."

"I find it frustrating that The Decency Gap project is able to convince YouTube to remove a factual video without any explanation," he said in a statement. "None of the information provided in the video has been contradicted by 'The Decency Gap.'

"Additionally, the project's links to the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Marie Stopes International, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the Peruvian pro-abortion association PROMSEX have not been disproven."